The inappropriateness of allowing contract personnel to perform duties prior to their being cleared to do so is troublesome.

The fact that FAS allowed several workers to slip through the system, including at least one instance which occurred after they had received an admonishment to take corrective action, makes one scratch their head.

The GSA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) was direct in their admonishment:

“We found that FAS has not ensured that contract employees receive favorable background investigation determinations before providing them with access to sensitive government information, systems, and facilities.”

The OIG continued that allowing contract employees to work without the completed determinations put both FAS and its customers at risk.

“Theft, waste, fraud and abuse of government funds and equipment is never acceptable,” said Minkler. “When it involves stealing from our military, it is a particularly egregious offense and those responsible will be held accountable.”

Treloar owned a St. Louis based company called Treloar Enterprises International, Inc. (TEI) which contracted with the Department of Defense’s Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) to demilitarize military vehicles, mostly High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles commonly known as Humvees. The Humvee is a four-wheel drive military light truck capable of being outfitted with armor, ballistic glass and high-powered weapons and is currently being used in the Iraq and Afghanistan theaters.

As part of Treloar’s contract with DLA, his company was responsible for demilitarizing the Humvees which would include eliminating the functional capabilities and inherent design features of vehicles. In many cases, that included the total destruction of the Humvee. When the Humvees were demilitarized, both Treloar and Collier verified in writing that the process had been completed.

From January 2014, through November 2015, TEI took delivery of all Humvees from Naval Support Activity Crane (Crane) which is located in Southern Indiana. To facilitate the contract, TEI opened a facility in nearby Spencer, Indiana, where the purported demilitarization took place. The indictment alleges Treloar converted at least seven fully armored Humvees for his own use and sold or attempted to sell them for his own benefit. The value of the Humvees was over $589,000. Both defendants also certified that each and every Humvee was demilitarized, when in fact they were not.

“Today’s indictments demonstrate the commitment of the Defense Criminal Investigative Service and its law enforcement partners to protect the integrity of all Department of Defense programs,” said Special Agent in Charge John F. Khin, Southeast Field Office. “DCIS’ efforts in this investigation mitigated further significant loss and waste of taxpayer dollars from this fraudulent scheme.”

“Not only is fraud of this type a serious financial crime, the equipment involved is concerning,” said Mike Wiest, Special Agent in Charge of the NCIS Southeast Field Office. “There are no legitimate civilian uses for an armored military vehicle. NCIS will continue to work with our law enforcement partners to hold accountable those who siphon resources away from America’s warfighters.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney Bradley P. Shepard who is prosecuting this case for the government, said Treloar faces up to 10 years’ imprisonment on each count of conversion of government property and Collier faces up to five years’ imprisonment on each count of false statements.

An indictment is only a charge and not evidence of guilt. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven otherwise in federal court.

In October 2017, U.S. Attorney Josh J. Minkler announced a Strategic Plan designed to shape and strengthen the District’s response to its most significant public safety challenges. This prosecution demonstrates the Office’s firm commitment to prosecuting complex, large-scale fraud schemes, particularly those that exploit positions of trust.

Nearly 90% of women-owned small business sole source contracts reviewed by the SBA Office of Inspector General (OIG) were improper, according to a startling report issued last week.

In the study, the SBA OIG concluded that because of pervasive flaws in the award of WOSB and EDWOSB sole source contracts, “there was no assurance that these contracts were awarded to firms that were eligible to receive sole-source awards under the Program.” And if that wasn’t enough, the SBA OIG reiterated its position that, as a legal matter, it is improper to award any WOSB or EDWOSB sole source contract to a self-certified company.

The SBA OIG studied 56 WOSB and EDWOSB sole source contracts awarded between January 1, 2016 and April 30, 2017. This pool “represented 81 percent of the Program’s contracts awarded on a sole-source basis for this time period.”

The results were startling: SBA OIG determined that “Federal agencies’ contracting officers and firms did not comply with Federal regulations for 50 of the 56 Program sole-source contracts, valued at $52.2 million.” As a result, there was no assurance that these contracts were awarded to eligible WOSBs and EDWOSBs.

The Army’s delays and added work orders for construction improvements for a hospital at Fort Bliss, Texas, cost the Defense Department more than $32.1 million, according to a new report from the inspector general.

The watchdog faulted the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Defense Health Agency for a lack of guidance on reporting of expenditures.

An audit of the continuing construction of the Fort Bliss Hospital Replacement project was required under the fiscal 2018 National Defense Authorization Act. When complete, it will be a 1.13 million square foot-facility housing 135 hospital beds, 10 operating rooms and 30 specialty clinics, plus an administrative building, a research building, a central utility plant, two access control points and surface parking.

The Department of Defense Office of the Inspector General (DoD IG) recently published a nonstatistical sample of 14 Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) IT service contracts, valued at $72 million.

The report presented the IG’s findings with respect to the question of whether DCMA properly awarded and administered the contracts. DoD IG found that for 11 of the 14 IT service contracts reviewed, valued at $61 million, DCMA contracting officials did not properly award the contracts.

The IG concluded that DoD awarded $56.4 million in IT services on contracts with poorly defined or nonexistent performance work statements, risking that the services may not meet the performance needs required to successfully execute the DCMA mission.

The problems encountered included:

Failure to properly define requirements that included measurable performance standards for 8 contracts;

Failure to develop an acquisition plan for one contract;

Failure to submit offers for two contracts awarded through the 8(a) program for Small Business Association (SBA) acceptances; and

Using flexible ordering agreements to award five of the 14 contracts, which violated Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) system requirements.